Splish splash

We have a rule at our house that the toilet lid goes down (why else would they have them if they are not meant to be used?).  I always try to clean toilets without little, pretrained kids around. So I've never had a problem with little splashers.

This morning as Mason was getting dressed Emma was in the bathroom with him.  I was in the kitchen & heard him yelling for me.  When I got to the bathroom there was Emma splashing in the yellow water having a great time.  Mason was not sure what to do.  I was just grossed out.  What a great way to start Halloween!

It's Halloween Time!

This has been a fun Halloween week & the big day has not even happened yet!
We had a family party last Saturday, but my camera did not make it. I need to get some pictures from Mom & Becky. Emma was tired after a morning of shopping. She was asleep when I pulled her out of the car. I held her for a few minutes, then set her down, hoping she would wake up. Instead she just flopped over. She did wake up after this picture, good thing, because she (& I) needed a real nap!

Mason could not wait to carve pumpkins, so we did three on Monday. He was not so sure about the slime inside of them (even though he & Sarah have been having a great time with some black slime stuff Grandpa & Grandma gave them at the party on Saturday).

Mason & Sarah went to a primary Halloween party last night put on by the young men & women. We have a very talented artist in our ward who did the face paintings.

Mason had a horse to go with his horse costume. We bought this costume for him about a month ago. Last week in Costco I found an astronaut costume that I just could not leave there, he would not let me. So, for some parties (like a birthday party yesterday) he's been the astronaut, for others the horse.

Sarah had a witch hat, even though she was a vampire.

Today Mason & I made "eyeball cookies". They look pretty great & taste even better. Those are not Mason's real teeth, he's got vampire ones in from his preschool party today.

Mason's preschool class. Miss Cathie makes a great Dora (& an even better sport)!

The view out our kitchen window. Todd bought a telescope this week. I told him it would be a great family Christmas present. Yeah, if it had stayed in the box until then! We've had fun looking up at the mountains with it & last night we saw a planet or two. Mason wanted to look through it to see Sammy's house since he knows it's far away.

Food & friends & a tooth

Last night we went on a double date with Brad & Jenni. They were down for the weekend from Idaho Falls. We went to the Cheesecake Factory & stuffed ourselves & had a great visit. It was so great to see them again!
Our kids were sad that they did not get to see each other, hopefully next time.
Sarah ended up having fun with her cousins babysitting, she lost a tooth! It was really loose as Todd & I left. Allie & Becca are "loose tooth experts" since they have recently lost some, so they gave Sarah some tips & she surprised us this morning with the hole in her smile. She's thrilled she'll get her name on the lost tooth poster in her first grade class.

Fall!

Fall is really here! We've never had a yard with leaves to rake before. The kids are enjoying it.

The kids were having fun jumping out of the swings into the leaf pile.

This mess is from a walnut tree. Don't EVER plant one. When we moved in there were black wormy things (not really worms, just seeds or something) all over the ground from it. Then at the end of the summer walnuts started falling in big green pods. Now the leaves are falling. I had cleaned up this many the day before, came out the next day to see this mess again. I'm going to wait a few days before I clean this round up.

Fall Break

This past weekend was Fall Break (better known as UEA with Monday off tacked on).
Sarah went camping with my sister Lori's family. They went to Crystal Hot Springs. It's a campground & swimming area in Honeyville, Utah. The pools are filled with water from natural hot & cold springs, so they are kind of salty, but feel really good. We went there every year growing up. It's still the same!
I took Mason & Emma up on Friday to swim. The temperature was in the 70's & the water was much warmer. My kids thought the water was great. Too bad we did not have our camera along.
Monday Lori, Lynda, & I took our kids to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point. They had a great time!

Jonah, Isaac, & Mason, what handsome fellows!

Emma was really good for the day, she even fell asleep in her stroller towards the end (she rarely does that!).

Mason did the bungee jump. He loved it! Sarah had done this at Snowbird & did not want to try it again.

There were tons of inflatable slides & bouncers, the kids loved them!

There was a little haunted house.

We picked out a few pumkins, only $2 each since it was the last day.

Mason & Jonah in the Toddler Town, even though they probably should not have been.

Emma thought the Toddler Town was great! It did gross me out when she tried to eat these balls.

An offer they'd better not refuse

We put in an offer for the house I love last night. We finally got the green light from our lender, so I think things are good on our end.
The owner/builder/seller was thrilled to get our offer & needed to take it his bank to find out if they would be as thrilled about it & accept it.
We'll see!

Good thing she's cute!

Emma was 11 months old yesterday. All I can say is it's a good thing she's cute, really cute.
She has been our toughest baby. She does not care much for sleeping. We've given up on the two naps a day, so yesterday I fed her & put her down around 1:00. She did not like that idea. She screamed in her crib until I went in to hold her for a second & put her back down. When I got in there, she had thrown a sock as well as her pants overboard. The pants on the floor just made me laugh. Good thing I think it's funny, she did it again today; screamed forever, threw pants overboard, and now is finally napping, pantless. This picture shows her great teeth, she's got 8, all 5 on the top came during September, it was a painful month. No, there is nothing wrong with her eye, she's just grinning so big that it's all scrunched up.
Emma loves my tupperware cupboard. Good thing that's the only thing in there.
Yesterday she discovered the kitchen towel drawer, she thought she'd struck gold.

First snow!

Sunday morning we had our first snow of the season. The kids were thrilled. There was enough to cover the grass. The driveway was warm enough still that we did not need to shovel.
The kids played for a while in the morning, then the snow was gone when we headed to 1:00 church, which was fine with me since I'm not quite ready to have snow yet!

oh deer.

We have lots of deer around here. This morning there were three in our backyard.
Mason has not been a huge fan of the deer. One night he came upstairs telling me there was a deer in his room. The next morning when I asked him about it he remembered the deer still. Then whenever he'd see a deer out behind the back fence he'd get nervous & run into the house & lock the door since he knows deer can't open doors. These deer were wandering down our street.
This is one right behind our back fence. I had Mason look at this one carefully to hopefully overcome his fear. He still told me about the deer in his room, but that they are not scary. He must be having quite the dreams.

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Sarah is seven today! Wow! Time really does go faster as I get older.
Many of you know her crazy birth story, but just in case... I'll write about it.
Todd was in his second year of medical school in DC & we were living in Virginia. Sarah was due October 23. Todd just kept saying any time after October 8 would be fine for me to have the baby. He had his first big test that day.
Well, the night of October 7 I started with some low back pain. It lasted off & on all night. The next morning I was sure I was starting labor. I called my doctor around 8am & she told me it would be all day probably & not to come in to the hospital yet. So, I sent Todd downtown (25 minute metro ride) to take his test, with his dial-a-dad pager from the hospital. Someone from work called to see if I was coming in to do some schedule work (I worked at GW Hospital in DC & was in charge of making the nursing schedules for my floor). I said I was starting labor & did not think I wanted to come in (I should have though!).
Anyway, Todd called around 10:30 & I was fine. Then around 11:00 I started thinking I was not so fine. I called my doctor around 11:30 & she told me maybe I should come in. I paged Todd. Then I paged again, & again, & again. I was really starting to hurt by this time.
Finally, Todd called at 12. He was done with his test & the pager had never gone off. I could hardly talk I was in so much pain. He hurried home. I knew I was not going to make it to a hospital in a car so I called 911. Todd pulled into our parking lot followed by a fire engine full of EMT's. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later.
I was loaded into the ambulance & Todd made it in & we were off, 7 minutes to Fairfax Hospital. I knew I would not make it. Sarah was born at 12:59 on Lee Highway in Fairfax, Virginia.
The afternoon, Todd's pager went off for the first time that day. Hmmm.
Sarah just wanted to make a grand entrance!
We had a family party on Sunday to celebrate. Here is Sarah with her birthday loot.
This is the cake (or shall I say frosting with a bit of cake?). Sarah is a chocolate fan.
Last night we went to the mall to pick out Sarah's Build-A-Bear. This was the thing she really wanted for her birthday, so we'd given her a gift certificate so she could pick the bear herself. We were there for a long time! She named her bear Mary Jane. It sings a funny happy birthday song. (Todd wonders why he went to med school, he wishes he'd been the one to come up with the build-a-bear idea & make his millions that way)
Last week at school Sarah got to celebrate her birthday (another kid in her class got this week). She had to make a poster of pictures. On here is a picture of her with her birthday poster for preschool when she turned three.

Rental

We are renting a house for a year. Our contract will be up June 1, which seems very far away. This has been a fun house to live in, very large (bigger than anything either of us have ever lived in) with an even bigger yard (almost an acre lot). The house is probably 10-15 years old, I'm not sure. Well, it's been showing its approximate age while we've been living here.
A few weeks after moving in, Mason's room, which is in the basement, started smelling really musty. Then I noticed the floor was very wet under his bed. The sprinklers were hitting his window & water was leaking in inside the wall. I could tell it had been a problem before because the window sill area was very warped. So, I called the property manager. She came over with her husband & they put a bucket over the sprinkler, saying they would come back when the sprinklers were on & adjust it. Well, the bucket made things worse because now the water had nowhere to go but down. So, a few days later Todd got back to Utah (he'd been in Minnesota still) & figured out how to adjust the sprinkler. Fine. We've had to adjust it several times this summer. I watered again this week & it happened again, so I'm done watering for the season. Hopefully it will cool off & the lawn will be ok.
Another problem. The icemaker decided to flood the inside of the freezer. It would fill up & keep filling. I once again called the property manager. After a few days of waiting for her to call back, Todd looked online to figure out what needed to be done. He ordered a new ice maker. Finally, I got to talk to the property manager & told her we'd taken care of the problem. Todd installed it & things are fine again inside our freezer, I've even chisled out most of the things that were encased in ice.
Well, last night we had yet another surprise. As I went to the kitchen last night to close a window before going to bed it sounded like someone had left the faucet on in the mud room bathroom. I walked in to find a huge puddle surrounding the toilet. I lifted the lid & things looked fine inside, so I took the top off the tank & noticed a crack all along the tank, top to bottom. I've noticed a crack on the outside that seems to have been caulked or something in the past, but whatever, it gave way last night. So, we got the water turned off, the floor mopped up (I hope it did not leak into the basement, this bathroom is above the locked part of the basement where the owner's belongings are), & then Todd put some gorilla glue & clamped it so the entire side would not fall off during the night. I'm just happy I noticed it last night not this morning! So, I once again have called the property manager. She said she'd send her maintenance guy out to look at it & probably install a new toilet. Fun fun. Hope it does not take forever to get done!
We are SO done with this renting business. At least if it was our own house we could just get the work done instead of calling to have it done, then finally just doing it ourselves!
As for the home buying, this was a bad week to be trying to get a mortgage! I talked to our banker's secretary today & she said our loan was still being "underwritten" & would be Monday or Tuesday before we'd know. I'm getting antsy to get an offer in on the house! I talked to the seller yesterday & told her we are still very interested & just playing the waiting game. I hope it works out!

Dimes

I've started dime jars for my kids.  I got the idea from Janus's blog a while ago.  Anyway, I put 30 dimes in a jar for Sarah & 20 for Mason.  If they don't obey I take a dime out & they won't get it back.  At the end of the week whatever money is left is theirs to keep.  I started this last week & it has helped a bit with obedience.  Anyway, today as I was helping Mason put his money into his piggy bank I was telling him that he can save up to buy something he really wants.  

I said, "what's something you want to buy with your money?"

He said, "an ATV."

Hmm, that's going to take a lot of piggy banks!

He loved the ATV's this summer while we were camping & whenever he sees one he gets very excited.  What a kid.